Sunday, November 19, 2006

Ediot 85

That is the last time I am going to go over this so listen up. If you believe E85 is a viable fuel alternative, your an idiot. There is no two ways about it, your nucking futs. If you believe for a second that E85 will be cheaper that regular gasoline, see above. If you believe a car can get better mileage on E85, again, see above. If you believe that a automobile makes the same amount or more horsepower on E85.... E85 will not "lessen our dependence on foreign oil." It will just put the burden else ware. Enough corn cannot be grown in this country to support a nation wide demand for ethanol like there is currently for gasoline. Never mind that ethanol is seasonal. We would have to import ethanol from one of two places that actually make enough to export. Brazil and China. Currently ethanol imports from China are taxed $1.35 a gallon on top of the $1.20 it already costs. That does not include the transportation costs and refining to get it to meet federal guidelines. Transportation being the largest cost since E85 cannot be piped like regular gasoline, it has to be trucked, carried by train, or ship. Brazil, on the other hand, gets their ethanol from sugar cane. Sugar cane produced roughly %50 more ethanol per acre. However, the same taxes that plague the Chinese imports are present. %90 of all cars on the road today are not rated to run on E85. Your older can can run on E85 with $500 on modifications. One of the modifications is a larger fuel pump and larger fuel injectors to push the much denser E85 though your fuel system. Your car, in theory, could run on regular gasoline after the modifications if you had to. But not for extended periods of time. Most likely you would have much more power than the standard car, but only experience 15 miles per gallon for a small car and maybe 3 mpg for nearly any size truck.

Keep this in mind when those blow-hards in congress and the senate try to push this crap on everybody.

And while I'm at it: Hybrids. What a stupid idea that is. The Toyota Prius is EPA rated at 60 city and 51 highway. If you ever come close to that I'll buy one. Most owners of the Prius report 42mpg combined mileage. That is much closer to real world estimates than anything the EPA could pull out of its ass. Lets compare the Prius to the Yaris which is another vehicle by Toyota. The Yaris sedan is in the same small car category as the Prius and has nearly the same interior dimensions. The Yaris gets 40mpg combined, and is rated at 34 city and 40 highway. Here is the kicker. The Prius' MSRP is $22,795.00, but the Yaris is $13,270.00. $9525 for an extra 2mpg? But wait! If you could but a Prius for MSRP I'd be surprised but you can't. Expect $2000-$5000 in dealer markup. So that puts the Yaris around $12,000 cheaper than the Prius and all this is for an "Look at me!! I'm saving the world!!!" persona?

Let me throw this in your hippie pipe and let you smoke it. Say you drive 15,000 miles a year and gas is $2.50 a gallon...

15,000 Miles$2.50 gal42mpg Prius (11.9 gal tank)40mpg Yaris (11.1 gal tank)=$892.50 a year for the Prius$943.50 a year for the Yaris_________$51 in savings a year